The Curse of a Castelian Sanctuary
by Starry's Light
Summary: Filloma, a pokemon-turned-human, and her audino companion Ciallo, find a long-forgotten trail behind the old outdated buildings in Castelia City. What the trail leads them to is an unbelievable discovery. Includes WHITE VERSION (aka light version) and BLACK VERSION (aka bleak version). Based off of a dream I had that my friends told me to write about.
1. WHITE VERSION

**Wrote this for a dream I had about some mean audinos**

**ended up with two very different versions. This is WHITE VERSION (light/gentle version) and the next chapter is BLACK VERSION (bleak/sad vibes version). Just like the games hahahahaha I can't take credit because my boyfriend came up with that.**

The Curse of a Castelian Sanctuary

WHITE VERSION

Filloma had been waiting for some time as her friends approached the metropolis paradise of Castelia City. She had heard rumors that one of them in particular had gotten lost in Pinwheel Forest, and although she considered leaving her refuge in the city, she knew that this was a battle Raydowi would have to wage on her own.

The young girl, while she waited, perused the ill-known ramparts of the city. Bright lights flashed beyond her back in the gentle periwinkle sunrise. The puffy pink pokemon at her feet kept watch, and he narrowed in on any singular leaf that dared crackle in the direction of his trainer.

"Ciallo," she whispered, following the sound of the leaves, "where do you think this trail goes?" Filloma's dark gaze hovered upon the edge of the alleyway, where decrepit buildings long-forgotten gave way to trees' trunks and cracked pavement split by roots: nature taking back what humanity had once stolen.

Her audino stiffened. _I do not know,_ he uttered in his soft sage tone. (Filloma herself had once been a pokemon, so even rendered as a human, she could understand her pokemon peers.)

Out of curiosity and a smattering of boredom, the green-haired girl led her audino into the swallowing depths of the forest. Old broken glass shifted beneath her sneakered feet like cursed leaves; the faint stink of petroleum's decay as it sunk into the ground grew pungent, then dampened, as they continued on. Filloma ran her hand along a building and felt rough grooves eaten away by moss and mold, which steadily covered more and more of the brick walls.

The farther the two ventured into the forest, the further Filloma could grasp the snippets of mutterings that traveled far beyond, left as husks of sound—of promise. As the all-powerful forest, capable of destroying humanity's mark—the only mark the two knew—the girl and audino had begun to trade remarks hinting at their underlying anxieties. If not for the aching in her heart that sought to know what sort of existences hid within this secret woodland, perhaps poor Ciallo's whispers of _I am feeling rather uncomfortable Filloma_ and _this is much too sacred for our filthy kind to wander_ would have swayed her.

However, Filloma was also a pokemon trainer: while an accidental misstep in her life's journey, one could not distance themself from that ash-ketchum-flavored call in the pit of their pokemon-loving soul. Adventure beckoned; Filloma came.

The ground, once malformed by human hands, now crumbled to crag underfoot. With a squeak, Ciallo stumbled; his trainer caught, then gently lifted her beloved audino into her arms. Though tall, he fit snugly against her body and folded his legs against her so that she had some support.

As the earth sloped upwards, reaching for the heavens, Filloma trekked onwards. The soft, musty smell of forest melted into harsh sunlight and earthy rock. Small, scraggly trees blanketed her reluctant trail. Shadows had crept across her vision as she hiked on heavenwards, and she glanced aside only to realize that her side trail had transformed into a mountain pass. Dark clouds smudged what sky she could still see above and ahead of her, and she traced it to a burgundy peak belching haphazard streams of smoke. Cringing, she drew Ciallo close.

She could faintly make out, in an aureole eclipsing the risen sun, an outline of Castelia's skyscrapers, when she turned back to look.

Such wild, vicarious nature breathed dazzling life on the cusp of Unova's tamed world, trimmed and fenced into a linear trail. Little wonder why but to keep wholly unprepared travelers from the harsh reality beyond.

Filloma... could _sense_ the taste of an air that was not tainted by human corruption, and it was light, airy, bright against her skin. Even as she reached the top of the mountain pass and began a craggy descent into somewhere incredibly far from the life she had been engineered to live, her heart thrived.

Lifting his velvety head from her chest, Ciallo asked, _Where are we going, Filloma?_

She shook her head. "I'm not sure, but it's... easier, here, to breathe. So I want to continue.

"Do you hear that, Ciallo?"

His hesitance told her. _Hear... what?_

Somehow, he couldn't hear it. Somehow, _he_ couldn't hear it, an audino.

Filloma's pokemon-borne blood chilled even as her skin burned with the distant volcano's watchful flame.

"Something... very precious... must be..."

The voices again, louder. She drew off as they overwhelmed. What were they saying—Why couldn't she construe meaning other than the chirp of bright sound?

Ciallo squiggled out of his trainer's grip and followed her hasty footsteps, only beginning to pick up the sound of lively pokemon-chatter as the path widened and dove into a thicker, fuller grove of trees. The voices pervaded, ever stronger giggling, shushing, victorious outcries like fireworks in the midst of a peaceful silence. Like... children, except...

Filloma hovered just within reach of comprehension, still a distance away from whatever she had heard in the grove, and her audino squished into the place around her legs. She glanced up into the swaying trees, their leaves whistling in the wind, and surveyed a mesmerizing swirl of autumnal reds and oranges. She could not begin to understand why the foliage were such a particular shade when the ones along the way had been green. But her eyes pierced the volcano through the grove, where grass met cliff and a wide expanse pervaded in the beyond. And she wondered what sort of mythical beast called this place their den.

Then the voices—an explosion of color across her mindscape.

_I found you!_

_Noooooooo! That's cheatinnnggg!_

_It's cheating when you say that, Clip-Clop!_

An ever-louder wail of anguish. _Nooooooooo... that's not faaaiirrrrr... You—You always find me firrssstt!_

A bark of pokemon laughter. _Everybuddy knows that Clip-Clop is the worst hider. I dunno what to tell ya, bud._

_Nnoooooooooooo..._ Dry sobbing followed.

Slowly Filloma's head turned, searching through grounded piles of leaves for the voices. She spotted, if she squinted, the imprints of fluffy pink heads peeking out of sun-colored mounds, and she covered her mouth, hiding her sudden smile.

An audino passed around one of the tree trunks ahead, a second lagging behind her, adorning the most expressive frown she had ever seen upon a pokemon's face.

Ciallo gasped, a little slower than his trainer. _They're..!_

_Clip-Clop, stop moping and help me find the others._

To his grousing companion's demand, the droopy audino behind her sighed, sagging into his furry chest. _Okay..._ He added a quiet _sorry everybuddy_ before mercilessly kicking down carefully-piled leaf mound after leaf mound. He dragged himself forwards as he fired into a kick; fellow audinos play-snarled and tackled at him, leaving behind their hand-crafted hiding places as he ruined them.

The uncovered audinos formed a circle around their seeker who was not doing very much seeking. She counted, squinting her eyes and muttering off each attendant by name. _Mobaa, Chak-Chak, Deebo, Cream—wait, waaait a..._

Hurriedly she utilized a strange, indescribable attack that shot an audino from an unsuspecting tree branch, to which he landed with a _fwump!_ on the ground.

_Darn, secret power put him to sleep again... w-well no matter! Forbet isn't the best hider for nothing... _She brightened sun hit her through the trees, dappling her fur, highlighting her cheery audino grin. _Who wants to seek next?_

_But you're the only one who's good at it, Seemeshe,_ Clip-Clop muttered in a low, sarcastic bleat.

Seemeshe, their supposed seeker, fluffed an ear. _You aren't wrong~ Wellll, alrighty, I'll go again, I suppose. Unless somebuddy else would like to—_

She cut herself off.

Ciallo had squiggled his way into their circle.

_Why, I will do it! I would love to learn if I am a better seeker than the likes of you~_

Seemeeche's eyes blazed. _Oh, now you show yourself, huh, petty? _The volcano beyond gave a troubling growl as it belched a steamy circle of smoke. Yet as Seemeshe spoke, the other audinos played off her like a ripple, whispering _petty_ as they gazed upon the outsider and the volcano sizzled, louder, louder.

Like it knew.

_Petty? Oh, no no._ Ciallo corrected her, chortling. _My name is—_

_W-We don't care what your name is!_

One of the audinos broke out to shriek; then the rest shattered away and began to run from the audino and his now-revealed trainer, who took his side in an effort to support him.

She heard these words, and her heart weighed heavy in her chest.

The last audino, the one who had lagged behind, stared fiercely in the way of Ciallo. _You... petty, we see your Master right there. We know what you are._

And then the audinos had all but been spirited away from the enchanted grove. Even the sleeping one had been picked up and moved with the others, far too quick and perceptive for a human-world born and raised audino, his abilities blunted and weakened in comparison, to follow.

Ciallo opened his mouth, as if to rectify his stung pride, but then he closed it with a meager laugh. His hoof awkwardly played with an ear as he stared ahead, where the audinos had disappeared.

The rumbling of the volcano increased, hotter, hotter, until the trainer and her pokemon could feel it—when a voice arose from the bubbling lava.

_STOP, CHILDREN._

Filloma shrieked and grabbed at her audino, whimpering. "Wh-Wh-Wh-What was that..."

_I don't... I think..._ The audino closed his eyes, listening, bending to the force of the voice.

From the volcano, far beyond, rose a glistening white figure. Massive wings swooned out of its prismatic form, and the beastly dragon took the skies. Its elegant body bristled with an unimaginable fire, and again the beast cried, _MY CHILDREN, DO NOT RUN FROM WHAT YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND._

All too suddenly, the—the figure had reached their cliff, but it did not face Filloma, nor her audino. An efface below them drew its attention. _Please come out. Treat this being with the respect that you treat towards one another. It is wrong to shy away from such blatant friendship, my children... why would you seek to treat one another in malice when you are of the same distant mother?_

Mother...  
Filloma raised her eyes to the beast even as she had to look away from the immense brightness of it.

_Please. Be kind. You must be aware that this human and her pokemon only found you because nature allowed them to._

Then all too soon, the dragon had dissipated, gone to the volcano—or perhaps to right some other wrong. Slowly, its words following them, the audinos resurfaced from somewhere just below the cliff face and stared horribly at the trainer and her audino.

_Okay fffffine. You can play. But if you suck, then it's your fault,_ Seemeeshe muttered.

Clip-Clop, however, could not keep the dance out of his legs. _I won't be the worst hider anymore! I am so very excited!_

And as if he had never faced their opposition, Ciallo stood up straight, his puffy little tail secretly wagging behind him. _I am so very excited to prove you wrong._


	2. BLACK VERSION

**Alrighty, time to get sad and bad. All the context is in the first chapter, so uh basically read that one first. Black version, also known as bleak version. **

The Curse of a Castelian Sanctuary

BLACK VERSION

From behind a tree within the enchanted forest, Filloma watched her audino hit a sudden wall of rejection.

_What is a petty? _he asked, softer, quieter, his deep eyes lost of the dancing humor that had lived within them so shortly prior.

Another audino, from the shadows of the others, spoke up. _You were raised by a Master. We can tell. Even if—_Ev_en if you weren't stupid enough to come all the way up here without your Master..._ Their face screwed up, insolent, violent. _Your hooves are so—so loud... I bet the whole w-world could hear you hoofing over here! H-how did you even find this place? It's supposed to keep petties like you out by the, the the enchanted natureyness!_

Ciallo swallowed the backlash, forcing a mask of calm over his stifled heart. _Excuse me, I will have you know my trainer—no, not a "Master" at all—found this place, and need I warn you that she can hear our every word?_

An audino gasped and shoved at Ciallo, tripping over their sleeping friend's flank and missing him entirely. _What s-s-sort of... No! Masters can't have that type of horrible power! They're e-evil... corrupted... corrupting you, if you think they're anything else._

_I know this... because you can't break free of your Master... even if you wanted to. They put you in a red and white cell... then force you to fight your fellow claimed petties..._ The audino approached a choking halt, hooves around their heart. Whimpering, wheezing, their gaze rendered bright jewels, they fractured on. _You can't even d-die. They have Petty Healers that prevent you from ever leaving your personal hellscape—a... a special little samsara..._

_Samsara?_ one whispered. Another hushed her and replied, _That's just one of those words Chico learned from her Master. Before her Master died, and she finally escaped._

_We don't need to know what they mean, just that they hold the terriblest things inside._

Filloma grabbed hold of the nearest tree and shuddered—at first softly, then harder, harder, until she crashed to the ground with a muffled cry. A man dressed as if a priest began to flash maniacally through her vision, and the thick reek of incense shortened her breaths.

His words slid down the back of her neck with all the force and chill of a blade—

"_Shay, my child... my poooorrrr little thhhing..."_

She sank. Her knees folded up against her body, and her head fell in. She was sweating and—and weak, and horribly aware of something she shared with the audino who had escaped. The word left the ugly tang of metal in her throat, rusting with the shaky breaths she swallowed, attempting to ignore it, to let it dissolve through the back of her mind and let her go once more.

She forced her body to ease, relax. Then she crawled on all fours around her tree, meeting the eyes of shocked and stricken audinos.

_Why is she crying_, one asked, and their gazes fell expectantly upon the "petty".

None were facing her when she spoke.

"My name is Filloma, and I am c-crying because of the deep... honesty inside of each of you. I... I'm sorry. I'm sorry you have faced such cruelty by humans in the past." Her eyes sought out Chico—the audino who had escaped. "So have I. Once, I was a pokemon just l-like you, until a strange and otherworldly man took me away. He used a machine that smelled of apathy to stretch my form and mold me into what you see before you.

"Please believe me when I tell you that I as well despise the red and white c-cells, and I as well fear humanity's potential for complete and utter anarchy.

"Now... P-Please... please p-p-p-pplay with Ciallo! I know he was raised in a human-maintained society, b-b-but he is _good_, even if his hearing is n-not as good as yours due to his upbringing! Do not j-judge him so harshly!"

The audinos stared on in an awed silence. _I like her_, one squeaked, only to remember that she could hear and blush an incredible red.

_I—I mean..._ Mustering courage, Seemeeshe—the seeker—turned and faced the human. Her eyes settled upon Filloma's shoulder. _I mean, he _could_... but he's gonna be really bad at it... everybuddy knows that pokemon raised in people-world are bumbly and loud, just like people._

_OooooOHHHH!_ Clip-Clop cried, _LET HIM PLAY, LET HIM PLAAAYY! Then—Then I WON'T BE THE WORST HIDER ANYMORE!_

Ciallo hummed. _I will prove you wrong. If one of you was once a petty, then I promise you my petty prowess will merely serve as a starting point and not a stumped growth._ Smug as his always, even when against his biological superiors.

Filloma leaned against a tree and watched politely as audinos scurried about her to hide from her own. One took refuge behind her back, waterfalling her hair over their face.

Eventually, in the midst of a great hide-and-seek championship, the sleeping audino, the one who was apparently the best at hiding, awoke. He took Filloma's existence in stride and sat politely beside her.

_I take it you can understand us, human?_

She... paused. "Yes, I can. How did you know?"

_So that is why everybuddy is okay with you being here now. _He hesitated—then his fluffy face fell, a quiet curtain of introspective.

_There are not many humans like you, who thoughtfully do not use the red and white cells... who do not force us to fight._

"I'm... hoping I can change that one day," Filloma muttered, the only thing she had resembling a father sliding through her vision, fighting for attention, for compliance. "I have seen some form of it, in humans. A rallying, a question—Why do they continue to hurt? Can... they bother to stop? Humans tend not to understand what they are doing, imagining themselves in their brightest lights, thinking themselves much greater, mightier than their fatal truth."

She wondered if Team Plasma wasn't capable of something miraculous—something life-changing for pokemon, something that could end this cycle of samsara so that those mistreated would find peace.

But she knew that the thing that had raised her was incapable of such compassion—something so paltry to him that he forgot to treat the very child he had been hoping to change the world with—with kindness.

But it wasn't a... nary a bad idea on its own.

_Human, what pokemon were you, before you were forced into this other form?_

"I..." Her cheeks heated. "I was a, um... a shaymin." _SHAYYYYYyyYYYYy—_Her self-proclaimed father's cry shattered through her mind. "I was a shaymin. Their home lies far from here... but I suppose the man who took me wanted to prove a point with my species in particular."

The years of preaching to passerby about the _pokemon _who had been _turned human_ just for their sake—the outcries, the attention, the _tell me, am I a bad trainer_, the pleas and the apathy and the—and the—and the _abuse_, the hot mark of Ghetsis's hands on her skin...

And the escape.

She swallowed fitfully.

And the escape, and the chance of renewal. She gazed upon the audinos, flouncing about, spooking and tripping each other beneath their makeshift hiding-spots, calling silly names and feigning ignorance when found.

She prayed that one day, the rest of the world could be the same as this gentle moment that now took refuge within her chest, a second home.


End file.
